“Nor would I, my dear Dempsey, but that I have no occasion for the sum. To-morrow I set out to witness the last suit I shall ever engage in; and as I believe there is little doubt of the issue, I have nothing of sanguine feeling to suffer by disappointment.”
“Well, then, to-morrow I 'll start for Dempsey's Grove,” said Paul, sorrowfully. “With very different expectations I quitted it a few days ago. Good-bye, Lady Eleanor; good-bye, Miss Helen. I suppose there 's no use in guessing?”
Mr. Dempsey's leave-taking was far more rueful than his wont, and woe seemed to have absorbed all other feeling; but when he reached the door, he turned round and said,—
“Now I am going,—never like to see him again; do tell me the name.”
A shake of the head, and a merry burst of laughter, was all the answer; and Paul departed.
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE LAST STRUGGLE
That the age of chivalry is gone, we are reminded some twenty times in each day of our commonplace existence, Perhaps the changed tone of society exhibits nowhere a more practical but less picturesque advantage than in the fact that the “joust” of ancient times is now replaced by the combat of the law court. Some may regret—we will not say if we are not of the number—that the wigged Baron of the Exchequer is scarcely so pleasing an arbiter as the Queen of Love and Beauty. Others may deem the knotted subtleties of black-letter a sorry recompense for the “wild crash and tumult of the fray.” The crier of the Common Pleas would figure to little advantage beside the gorgeously clad Herald of the Lists; nor are the artificial distinctions of service so imposing that a patent of precedency could vie with the white cross on the shield of a Crusader. Still, there are certain counterbalancing interests to be considered; and it is possible that the veriest décrier of the law's uncertainty “would rather stake life and fortune on the issue of a 'trial of law,' than on the thews and sinews of the doughtiest champion that ever figured in an 'ordeal of battle.'”
In one respect there is a strong similarity between the two institutions. Each, in its separate age, possessed the same sway and influence over men's minds, investing with the deepest interest events of which they were hitherto ignorant, and enlisting partisans of opinion in cases where, individually, there was nothing at stake.
An important trial has all the high interest of a most exciting narrative, whose catastrophe is yet to come, and where so many influential agencies are in operation to mould it. The proofs themselves, the veracity of witnesses, their self-possession and courage under the racking torture of cross-examination, the ability and skill of the advocate, the temper of the judge, his character of rashness or patience, of doubt or decisiveness; and then, more vague than all besides, the verdict of twelve perhaps rightly minded but as certainly very ordinarily endowed men, on questions sometimes of the greatest subtlety and obscurity. The sum of such conflicting currents makes up a “cross sea,” where everything is possible, from the favoring tide that leads to safety, to the swell and storm of utter shipwreck.